Sunday, July 20, 2008

First off the weather has been crazy hot last week, like 40c (104f) with the humidex factored in and the weekend was stormy and overcast. Normally the storms pull out the heat but it seemed to just make the humidity worse which hovered around 100%. The plants seem to really prefer the weather but it makes me want to stay in the a/c. I did manage to get some picking done though and was rather happy that it is finally getting to the point where I can harvest a variety of things at once.

All the carrots have been pulled, they seemed to be getting thicker rather then longer so I figured I better get them out before they turn woody. Some kind of bore got to about 10 of the carrots so they ended up in the compost, I guess everyone has to eat right?

I also picked a few beets that had grown to a good size. They seem to be all at different growth stages so this is good because I can pick them as needed without having them get to large.

The celery has also grown large enough to start harvesting. I pulled one up, removed the pot I placed over the bottom of the plant to blanch it and it worked great. The celery is almost white, I have yet to taste it but I am betting it is not bitter at all because of the blanching.

The cucumbers are starting to produce a lot of blooms which is rather exciting because I am a cucumber fend.

This photo shows the bumper crop of mild banana peppers that are starting to get almost large enough to eat. I hope they taste good because I am going to have alot of them. The rest of the peppers, chocolate & red are flowering but no peppers yet.

The zuchinni is also producing many blooms but all 15 or so are male with no female flowers in sight, not sure if this is normal.

I will end with a couple photos of the waterfall we visited over the weekend. It is called Grindstone Cascade and is located in Waterdown, ON on Mill St. South. It is a very nice spot and was enjoyable even after factoring in the heat, humidity and I wore sandals on a rocky/clay trail at times on a 20 degree angle. Boy I'm whinny today! Anyhow, I was experimenting with the shutter in hopes of getting the moving water to appear as it is moving in the photo. It worked pretty well with some of the photo's but it was hard not to over expose and end up with a very washed out image.

emily - these carrots are an heirloom variety called Dragon Carrots. They are said to be a purple carrot but they are more red/burgundy then purple with the interior being orange. They have a spicier flavor and are rather interesting. I purchased the seed from the Seed Savers Exchange .

skeeter - I sure hope I have lots of cucumbers, it would be nice if I have surplus that I can turn into relish. Its great you enjoyed the waterfall, I like visiting new spots so I will keep posting places as I find them.

DP - I start the celery from transplants for the garden center. It has to be started indoors in my climate at least because it takes up to 140 days to harvest so it is defaintly a spring planting.

From what I have read it has erratic germination so you need to plant at least 5 seeds per cell, it needs to be evenly moist through out the whole growth stage and needs heavy feeding.

With that said, it seemed pretty easy to grow in my opinion, at least from transplants. I think next year I will try it from seed.

sin - I think the main reason the cucumbers are growing up the trellis so well is because of the potatoes planted in front of them. Basically up is the only way of getting to the light. The variety is "Double Yield Cucumber" for the Seed Savers Exchange, I hope it lives up to its name.

Saw your comment on my daughter's blog and wondered who you were so I visited your blog. Great garden pictures. My daughter is inspiring me to try vegetable gardening again here at this new house. You can see my travails with gardening at my blog. BirdsBloomsBooksetc.blogspot.com